when it comes to sex, women are not a monolith

untangling female desire from monogamous heteronormativity

I wrote a feature for Romper about non-monogamy through the lens of single/married/queer/straight motherhood that was published on Valentines Day. (I also wrote a how-to piece in the same spread for those interested in opening their marriages.) I was assigned this piece by my editor before all of the non-monogamy articles dropped and I became increasingly frustrated by the erasure of female desire in almost all of them. (I loved this piece by one of my faves, Kimberly Harrington (subscribe to her substack immediately) about Molly Roden’s memoir, MORE, which, full disclosure I haven’t read yet, although I have written about ENM and non-traditional relationship structures before.

I interviewed five different non-monogamous couples, all of whom I know either personally intimately or both because I do not believe people should be weighing in from the outskirts of an experience they do not have intimate knowledge of, specifically sanctimoniously monogamous heterosexual men.

And while I am not here to call anyone out, I do want to dig a little deeper into the conversation, specifically through the lens of women and mothers who open their marriages and relationships not because they were pressured by men to do so but because THEY wanted to explore outside of their relationships; a thing that many women have desired since the dawn of fucking time.

Because, guess what. Women are not a monolith and it’s exhausting to have to CONVINCE the culture that women are not the sexual ones.

Do you know how many women I hear from who are sexually frustrated by men who can’t keep up with them? And yet, the narrative is almost ALWAYS about how men demand sex from women when women do not want it.

And while that SURELY is A story, it is not THE story specifically for women in their 40s who are ON FUCKING FIRE unbeknownst to husbands who, bless their hearts, either do not notice or do not care. (Same thing, really.) It’s also a convenient story for men who do the bare minimum to pleasure their partners. Or, in some cases, nothing at all.

I have found that for many women, an appetite for something outside of their domestic duties as wives and mothers has been the driving force behind a desire for intimacy outside of their homes. This is the most common story I hear from women looking to branch out sexually: that in order to please their husbands, their own pleasure often took a back seat. And they’re ready for that to change.

Then there are the women who are unable to properly communicate how they want to get fucked. Which is something women need to address as well. (Do you know how many women I hear from who, even in middle age, do not know what gets them off let alone how to articulate that to a partner?)

How, then, do we expect men to know how to please us if we are too afraid to tell them? And how did we end up in relationships with people we are afraid to be honest with?

I have spent the last five years in and out of both serious and casual relationships and in that time have had a lot of sex with a fascinating variety of people.

I have also taken advantage of my own, for lack of a more flattering word, promiscuity, to get to know men who are not emotionally invested in me and therefor have little to hide — in order to ask them questions about their own emotionality and experience with female desire.

These conversations have softened me to men — to their insecurities and confusion when it comes to women, specifically our sexual, emotional and intellectual contradictions. She wants a nice man but she does not want nice sex for example. (Guilty!) Or the most common, of course: independent women who want to do everything on their own but also want to be taken care of! (Also guilty!)

These conversations have given me a greater understanding of men’s frustration with women (we’re full of contradictions!) as well as my own frustration with men (ahhhhh!!!!!) and I have come to the conclusion that men’s lack of safety when communicating their emotions runs parallel to women’s lack of safety when communicating our desire.

I have been told repeatedly that I am more like the man in most relationships but based on the conversations I have had (in the hundreds, literally) with other women, I do not think that I am in any way an anomaly.

I do think that most men feel threatened sexually by women who know what they want and have more experience than they do and so women, in order to appeal to the men they desire, bench their needs, wants and experience in order to prop up the ego of the men they are courting. This was certainly my experience in the past.

On the flip side, most men are looking for the kind of emotional security they do not know how to advocate for with their partners and look to sex as the closest thing they can find to feeling loved. And so they demand the kind of sex that feels like love to them — a sex that, in many cases, discounts the autonomy of female desire as love for ourselves.

Because a woman who prioritizes her pleasure is a woman who prioritizes herself in other ways — which can feel VERY threatening to a certain kind of man who was raised a certain kind of way and modeled a certain kind of good wife and woman.

In essence: if a woman tells a man how to get her off — or in more loving terms — what she desires in bed — the sex can feel like a deprivation of his care. If her satisfaction becomes a TRUE priority for him — it may feel like a betrayal to him or at the very least, a deprivation.

I think this is why so many women — and I’ve spoken to this before — fuck like mothers. Because they are with partners who ONLY FEEL LOVED when we deprioritize ourselves. Because that is what good mothers do.

"Sexually, I was always a caretaker first"

What does this have to do with non-monogamy you ask? Everything, actually.

Because in order to make non-monogamy work you have to be a great communicator. And an even BETTER listener. Something that a lot of men AND WOMEN struggle with and have to learn to be better at if they’re going to venture into any kind of open relationship. Something that people are SO UNWILLING TO DO that in many cases they would rather cheat on each other than have an honest conversation about their own desire.

The fact that so many married people feel unable to do this with their partners says so much about the typical monogamous model, I think. The fact that we judge infidelity KNOWING how common it is proves that we would rather live in denial than face, head on, what is making us feel unfulfilled.

Which is why the non-monogamy conversation is so exciting to me.

Because it has the capacity to shake up the power dynamic of heteronormative relationships. Because my least favorite quality in a person is jealousy/control. Because honesty is freedom. Because all of the men I have interviewed about this subject have had eye-opening experiences re: female desire within their open relationships.

Austin, 51, who i interviewed for my Romper piece said this:

“So many men are threatened by female sexuality and therefore close themselves off to understanding female desire. My views have changed so much since my monogamous marriage. Sexual exploration has provided me with so much insight into my partners’ pleasure as well as my own.”

The fact that Austin went from being a certain kind of man within a monogamous model to a more open and accepting version of himself BECAUSE of his experience in a non-monogamous relationship is EXACTLY what I’m talking about. Because loving a woman who is unapologetic about her sexual power has been eye-opening to him in a way monogamy would not enabled.

Last year, Monica from A Broad View wrote one of my favorite posts that exists on the topic of Non-Monogamy.

In it she writes:

Monogamy is the right relationship structure for a lot of people. It may even be right for me again someday. I’m against compulsory monogamy in favor of intentional monogamy, is what I’m saying. People who desire monogamous relationships should communicate expectations within the parameters of monogamy the same way people in non-monogamous relationships do. But many married, monogamous people don’t do that. I certainly didn’t. I fell into a version of heterosexual monogamy fed to me by popular culture. Most married people default to monogamy with their own assumptions about what is and isn’t possible within their relationship and usually nothing outside of strict attention toward each other is all that is allowed. Even that word: ALLOWED. It just feels wrong to me in connection with love…

Compulsory monogamy, open relationships and the art of compersion

Beyond that, it’s worth exploring the reasons so many of us bristle at the idea of mothers wanting more from their lives than a traditional marriage affords them.

And while the topic of open relationships isn’t necessarily a gendered issue, every conversation I have had with couples in open relationships acknowledges the unlearning of patriarchal structures in order to make them work.

I always come back to that quote by Thoreau about all good things being wild and free which, of course, is in direct opposition to the concept of traditional femininity which defines GOODNESS as a mother, a wife, and even a woman, as being… not very wild and not at all free.

But for many women, advocating for a new, more imaginative relationship dynamic is a huge step in exploring what it looks like to break those rules AND remain, contrary to societal standards, good.

As a parent, I want my children to build their own paradigms when it comes to love and sex. I want them to feel safe in whatever relationships they choose to have not based on what is expected of them societally but what works for them both personally and within their partnerships. I also believe that knowing I have experimented with different kinds of people and relationships with curiosity as opposed to shame means they can come to me if or when they decide to do the same and know I will support them.

And while ENM isn’t for everyone, monogamy as the default in all relationships shouldn’t be either. “It’s just what you do” should be replaced with what feels right for you. For every couple as well as every autonomous person who desires to be part of one.

Because in the end, all I want for Christmas is for women to get free, get off, and if they seek partnership, to do so with someone who communicates honestly, supports their growth, validates their autonomy and is turned on by their life force.

That’s the kind of love I’m talking about, baby.

With or without the monogamy.